Area preschooler reading and teacher grant program gets funding boost

BEAVER, Pa., Feb. 12, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Beaver County Educational Trust today announced its 20-year-old mini-grant program for area educators received a $20,000 grant from National Network of Digital Schools, which comes on the heels of a $45,000 donation to sustain "Growing with Books," one of BCET's signature programs.

The NNDS donation will go a long way toward fulfilling requests BCET receives from teachers through the "Great Ideas" program, according to BCET Executive Director Jamie Connelly.

"We receive 20-30 applications annually," Connelly said, "and we are typically able to fund about a third of the requests. With this donation, we will be able to fund many more."

"We were eager to help sustain this program," NNDS President Bob Clements said, "because it taps the creativity of area educators and yields solid results for kids, ranging from after-school enrichment to Internet safety programs."

Connelly said BCET has encouraged the best and brightest teachers from Beaver County public, parochial and private schools to apply for mini-grants through its "Great Ideas" program.

"The thinking was, and is, that our school systems have many gifted teachers whose potential impact on their students is sometimes limited by boundaries set by operating budgets," she said.

Beaver Area School District teacher Desarai Porada used a "Great Ideas" grant so she and her fellow first-grade teachers could create a reading enrichment program for students with varied interests and ability levels.

Porada said she and her colleagues improved the students' comprehension and other reading skills, and inspired them to read on their own.

"Without the NNDS donation, we can't create programs like this, which develop a love of reading and a positive learning culture," she said.

Clements said NNDS is ramping up its commitments to organizations like BCET, because they emphasize the value of investing in students early.

Connelly said that, since the inception of "Great Ideas" in 1992, BCET has awarded 441 grants worth a total of nearly $250,000 to Beaver County teachers for projects ranging from after school math programs to musicals based on American history. Over 60,000 Beaver County students have been involved in a "Great Ideas" program.

"Growing with Books," the recipient of a $45,000 NNDS grant over the course of three years, has distributed more than 25,000 books, and was founded on the principle that reading is the essence of learning, according to Connelly.

"This is a principle that helps to form our foundation," NNDS President, Bob Clements, said, "so it was a natural decision to provide funding that directly helps to prepare children for success in school."

Connelly said "Growing with Books" helps parents to pour the footings of a foundation of knowledge for their children to build on throughout their lives. 

"It introduces new parents to the role they can and, many experts argue, should play in early childhood development of learning skills," she said, "and for the children, the benefits are plentiful."

Clements said NNDS is redoubling its efforts to be of assistance to organizations like BCET, which focus on investing in children at an early age.

"Studies indicate that reading to preschoolers and toddlers leads to a higher aptitude for learning and greater success in life, as a result," he said. 

"Growing with Books" helps to enrich the relationship between parent and child, as well as to help children establish speech skills and the ability to recognize sounds as words, Connelly said.

Its age-appropriate titles introduce the basics of reading a book, and because the books are delivered to the child through the mail, the child learns to value books and their content at a very young age, usually creating a sense of excitement about reading each time a new book arrives, she said.

Contact: Jamie Connelly, Executive Director
Beaver County Educational Trust
724.513.1633
[email protected]

SOURCE National Network of Digital Schools

Related Links

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